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You should have asked to borrow their car.

I don't think Apple is going away anytime soon. At the same time, I'll only buy films digitally if they're priced about the same as a rental. That way, even if they do disappear into the ether one day, I'll still feel like I got my money's worth.

No, but you do once you put the disc in. I still buy my fair share of discs, but aside from Criterion titles, I resent having to sit through warnings and marketing materials for something I paid for. At least with digital copies, you just press play and the movie starts.

That's true but nothing new. Kids in the 80s weren't interested in films from the 50s, and kids in the 50s weren't interested in the silent era.

Not really. Except this year, of course, attendance has been remarkably consistent year over year. Whether the pandemic will permanently alter moviegoing behaviour remains to be seen. https://www.the-numbers.com/market/

That seemed to be the way things were going for a while, but subscription services have become the dominant model in the last few years. The vast majority of viewers watch something only once and don't feel the need to own anything. They seem perfectly content with services like Netflix and...

Vinyl is expected to outsell CDs this year for the first time since 1986.

https://www.spiria.com/en/blog/tech-news-brief/dvd-and-blu-ray-sales/

Was anything new even released in the Paramount/Warner deal? It seemed like it was all repackaging already released titles.

I guess I'm in the minority. I use shelf space for books and keep all my discs in binders. I recycle the case, but keep the cover.

Why millennials refuse to let go of physical media: https://www.insidehook.com/article/why-millennials-refuse-to-let-go-of-physical-media-vinyl-records

And despite those issues, they still look better than the laserdiscs.

VHS wasn't abandoned because a superior format came along - it was dropped because it was no longer profitable. If had VHS had consistently outsold DVD for fifteen years, it would never have been discontinued.

Blu-ray players have always been able to play back DVDs and they've been cheap for years - it's easy to find a decent one these days for around $50. And while the prices of discs vary widely by title, there are a large number available for $5. People still don't care. They don't feel the need to...

I can think of a lot of good sci-fi movies in the past 20 years or so: -Blade Runner 2049 -Arrival -Under the Skin -District 9 -The Martian -Gravity -Moon -Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind -Her -Chronicle -Ex Machina -Snowpiercer -Edge of Tomorrow -Mad Max Fury Road -Looper -Minority...

If I know I'm going to watch a movie several times, I'll buy the disc. But I think we tend to seriously overestimate how many times we're going to watch something. I have DVDs from 20 years ago that have only been watched once, if at all. There are really only a handful of films that I tend to...

A well authored DVD from a good master produces a very acceptable image - sometimes I'm surprised by how not-bad it looks. I don't know what the average screen size is, but I suspect it's below 55". Watching a DVD on a set that size or smaller, from a typical viewing distance of 10-12 feet...

There's nothing above 4K right now. Even if the cameras are capable of higher resolutions, post production is limited to 4K, or more likely, 2K.

How would the industry be saving money by eliminating its best selling format? And at this point, would those who haven't already bothered with blu-ray/4K really be likely to do so, or would most of them just switch to streaming instead?

Television is definitely in a bubble right now. Streaming and conventional and cable networks aired 532 shows last year, and that's just the scripted stuff, not including documentaries and reality TV. There's no way that's sustainable. In a few years, Netflix is going to be in a position where...

That makes sense from an enthusiast's perspective, but if you were a distributor, why would you get rid of it? DVD is cheaper to manufacture and still outsells blu-ray, which means greater profit.

If Netflix or any other streaming service jacked up its prices, people would simply cancel their subscriptions. The younger generations don't seem particularly interested in film and television anyway - they'd just spend more time on social media and video games. And on top of that, there's...

Then some executive will come up with the radical idea of only having shows available at certain times, and we'll come full circle.

There are third-party sites that do list everything available on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu etc. But it's important to keep in mind that titles are going to cycle in and out fairly regularly. They're not permanent databases of content.

Yes, and expect disc prices to start rising. As fewer and fewer people stick with discs, distributors are going to have to increase prices to remain profitable. It's heading back to the days of laserdisc.

What do you mean by more interesting titles? Every major release gets at least a blu-ray, if not a UHD disc, and even minor ones receive at least a DVD release. Or are you talking about catalogue titles, which barely register on sales charts anyway?

At this point, I'm straddling the fence. Favourites I still buy on disc, because I like the feel of having a physical object, and it (usually) provides the absolute best image and sound quality. But I've also become more comfortable with digital purchases, especially when titles are available...

I don't see why it would be any different. At this point, it's all digital data anyway, whether it's on a disc or out there in the ether. There are still things to say about the quality of transfers and sound mixes, and of course, the films themselves.

That's why I keep my collection in the medicine cabinet.

They don't let you do that - it's copy protected.